Yeah, well, it may be fun and games
now, Jenna, but at least put some money aside for psychotherapy for the kid—and
maybe a little for others who’ll be affected by your “innocent” pleasure.

This is a dramatic example of the
way that our culture is being encouraged to abandon all trappings of gender
identity—homogenizing males and females when the outcome of such “psychological
sterilization” [my word choice]is
not known.[emphasis added]

If there is a silver lining in this unfounded rant, perhaps,
it's that we can take some comfort inAblow’sadmission that he has no clue
about the"effects"of this kind of “sterilization,”
because Ablow fails to provide even a shred of evidence to support any of the
claims he goes on to make.

To be clear, whether a boy decides to paint his nails pink
hasabsolutely nothingto do with one’s gender identity. It
seems strange to have to correct a professional psychiatrist on such an obvious
point, but many children behave in ways thatmight
be consideredatypical of their
gender without growing up to identify as transgender, and vice versa.

That glaring issue aside, however, Ablow’s post is a
hodgepodge of misinformed and offensive claims about transgender peoplethatcontradict empirical studies about how parents shouldapproachtheir children’s gender identities.

Ablow claims that allowing
children to explore their gender identity inflicts a “psychological penalty”
and causes them to “grotesquely amputate” their bodies:

[E]ncouraging
the choosing of gender identity, rather than suggesting our children become
comfortable with the ones that they got at birth, can throw our species into
real psychological turmoil—not to mention crowding operating rooms with
procedures to grotesquely amputate body parts? Why not make race the next
frontier? What would be so wrong with people deciding to tattoo themselves dark
brown and claim African-American heritage? Why not bleach the skin of others so
they can playact as Caucasians?

Why
should we hold dear anything with which we were born? What’s the benefit of
non-fiction over fiction?

Well,
the benefit is that non-fiction always wins, in the end. And to the extent that
you take flights of fancy into masquerading through life, life will exact a
psychological penalty.

Ablowsuggeststhat
being transgender is a choice that people make as a result of not fully
learning their gender roles as children -- a theory was largely contradicted
by a 2004studydocumenting the gender identities of
children who underwent gender-reassignment surgery at birth.

More importantly, Ablow’s
assertion that allowing children to define their own gender identity causes
“psychological turmoil” is exactlybackwards.Severalstudieshave found that transgender children
with accepting parents experienced remarkably higher levels of physical and
mental health than transgender children with parents who attempt to “correct”
their gender identities. Transgender children who face rejection from their
parents are more likely to be depressed, attempt suicide, and become substance
abusers.

Without citing a single study or
report, Ablow instructs parents to “suggest” that their children “become
comfortable” with their birth genders, despite a mountain of evidence
demonstrating the debilitating impactthese “suggestions” can have on children struggling to
understand their gender identities.

Dr. Ablow goes on to attempt to
connect images like J. Crew’s picture with a spike in girl-on-girl violence, a
decrease in child-raising, and the decline of the American military:

The
fallout is already being seen. Increasingly, girls show none of the reticence
they once did to engage in early sexual relationships with boys. That may be a
good thing from the standpoint of gender equality, but it could be a bad thing
since there is no longer the same typically “feminine” brake on such behavior.
Girls beat up other girls on YouTube. Young men primp and preen until their
abdomens are washboards and their hair is perfect. And while that may seem like
no big deal, it will be a very big deal if it turns out that neither gender is
very comfortable anymore nurturing children above all else, and neither gender
is motivated to rank creating a family above having great sex forever and
neither gender is motivated to protect the nation by marching into combat
against other men and risking their lives.

If you are baffled by the logical
progression of Ablow's diatribe, you are not alone. Ablow quiteastoundinglyattempts
to connect the deterioration of American culture with the failure of parents to
chastise their children for not behaving like their birth sexes.And did
I mention that he doesn't provide one shred of evidence for any of these
claims?

It’s columns like these that add
to an unfortunate amount of animus, persecution, and discrimination that
transgender people experienceevery day. As a licensed psychiatrist, Ablow should
be especially cautious about the way he advises parents to treat some of the
most vulnerable children in America. Instead, he chose to pander to Fox’s right
wing audience by repeating baseless and hurtful myths about transgender people
and transgender youth in particular.